The present invention relates to a method and assembly for inspecting painted surfaces of a vehicle body, locating and tracking defects in the painted surface, and repairing such defects if necessary.
Automotive assembly plants are comprised of numerous individual assembly processes that must each be performed accurately and efficiently in order to produce a successful vehicle. Automation has proven highly successful in improving the accuracy and efficiency of many such individual operations by reducing incidents of operator error. One particular field in which mechanical automation has the potential to provide significant improvements over human operators is in the area of Human inspection can take considerable time and is prone to error. This runs counter to the driving forces of accuracy, efficiency, and cost effectiveness that guide the modern automotive assembly plant.
An assembly process that has proven to be particularly susceptible to operator error has been automotive paint operations. Often, a finished vehicle has undergone several paint processes prior to leaving the plant. Processes such as e-coat, prime, enamel, and clear coat can be applied to the vehicle in various combinations. Defects arising during any one of these operations may result in an unsatisfactory appearance of the vehicle. Although it is often possible to repair a defect arising out of one of these operations, it can be a significant task to locate these defects quickly and accurately and take such remedial action with minimal disruption to the automotive assembly processes. Moreover, these repair operations are relatively expensive and can be ineffective.
Human inspection and flagging of such defects has left considerable room for improvements in efficiency. Often defects must be immediately addressed or flagged (marked) by the inspectors such that the vehicle may be either removed from the production line, or remedied prior to further painting processes. The inefficiencies of these operations have provided the driving force for automating the vehicle inspection and repair process. In this light, numerous automated optical inspection techniques have been developed. Although these optical techniques have proven successful in locating defects, they often provide inadequate procedures and insufficient information for remedying the defect. Often, operators are required to step in and perform remedial procedures prior to the vehicle advancing on the line. In other methods, the defect is visually marked such that operators further along the plant line must locate and address the defect. The application of automation to not only the inspection process, but also to the isolation and repair of defects, would provide considerable advancements and efficiency over these existing solutions.
One notable advancement in the field of vehicle inspection has been the use of CAD design information in conjunction with optical imaging to locate defects within the vehicle surfaces prior to paint operations. These systems can determine deviations in the structure from design data in order to insure that the surface is in proper form for paint application prior to typical spray booth operations. It would be highly desirable to advance this known technology in order to provide improvements within the paint assembly processes. In addition, it would be highly desirable to integrate this technology into an automated paint seek and repair assembly that could provide advancements in the accuracy, efficiency, and cost effectiveness of known paint operations.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a method and assembly for automated inspection and locating of paint defects on a vehicle. It is a further object of the present invention to provide automated paint defect repair in response to the located paint defects.
In accordance with those and the other objects of the present invention, a method of detecting and repairing paint defects on a vehicle body is provided. The method includes developing paint defect data using electronic imaging of the vehicle body. The electronic imaging is referenced with vehicle CAD data to develop three dimensional paint defect coordinates for each paint defect. The paint defect data and the paint defect coordinates are stored with reference to the vehicle body. A repair strategy is developed based upon the paint defect data and the paint defect coordinates. Finally, an automated repair is performed on the paint defects based upon the repair strategy.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent when viewed in light of the detailed description of the preferred embodiment when taken in conjunction with the attached drawings and appended claims.